Vermont Super Tuesday Results: Sanders Cruises To Victory

ACROSS VERMONT — Voting has ended in Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Vermont, with hometown favorite Sen. Bernie Sanders winning the state as CNN and the New York Times projected victory the minute the polls closed.

"Thank you Vermont! It's an honor to be your senator," Sanders tweeted out Tuesday night. "Let's go forward and transform this country together."

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A total of 99 percent of precincts have been counted as of 9:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, with Sanders receiving 51 percent of the total and securing 10 pledged delegates so far. Biden currently sits in second place with 22 percent of the vote, and Warren is in third with 13 percent.

Sanders is beating Biden by more than 40,000 votes.

"We are taking on the political establishment. But we are also going to win because the people understand it is our campaign, our movement, that is best positioned to defeat Trump," Sanders said to a room full of supports in Vermont on Tuesday night.

"Tonight I tell you with absolute confidence we are going to win the democratic nomination and we are going to beat the most dangerous president in the history of this country," Sanders continued.

The Vermont primary is an open primary, with the state awarding 24 delegates, of which 16 are pledged and allocated based on the results of the primary.

Sanders excelled among young adults, independent and liberal voters alike in his home state, and also won easily among voters who want to see a single-payer health care plan. According to local polls, 75 percent of voters in Vermont were in favor of replacing all private health insurance with a single government plan.

Sanders is hoping that garnering all the Green Mountain State’s delegates will help propel him into the top tier in Super Tuesday’s overall results over former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg and the rest of the Democratic presidential candidates.

Read More: Super Tuesday Results: Bloomberg Now Part Of Sanders, Biden Race

Elsewhere, around the country, Biden has appeared to score victories in the Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Minnesota, Texas, Massachusetts and Oklahoma Democratic primaries.

Along with Vermont, Sanders is also projected to win in California, Colorado and Utah.

Vermont Democrats gathered at polls, joining voters in 14 other states and one U.S. territory to participate in the biggest day of the 2020 presidential election process thus far.

Sanders and his wife Jane O'Meara voted near their home in Burlington's North End neighborhood on Tuesday morning. "It's very nice to be back, I can tell you that," Sanders said to a poll worker.

Sanders was considered the clear front-runner in his home state’s Democratic primary. The local senator was at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction, Vermont, on Tuesday night hosting a campaign rally and a results-watch party.

According to a poll conducted in February by Vermont Public Radio, Sanders was projected to receive 51 percent of the vote in Vermont’s Democratic primary, 38 points ahead of the next closest candidate.

The longtime elected official has had an impressive political career in Vermont. Sanders served as the mayor of Burlington from 1981 to 1989 and then was elected to Congress in 1991 as a representative for the state.

After serving eight terms in the House of Representatives, the now-78-year-old successfully won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2006 and has served in the position since.

In 2016, Sanders won the Democratic presidential primary in Vermont by a landslide as he secured 86 percent of the tally and won the state by almost 100,000 votes over Hillary Clinton.

Clinton would later go on to beat Donald Trump in Vermont by more than 25 percent in the 2016 election.

Sanders rides a wave of success coming into the Super Tuesday primaries, with the Vermont senator winning in Nevada, New Hampshire and still locked in the uncertainty of Iowa. However, Biden has the most immediate prior victory, with his first primary win of the presidential election cycle Saturday in South Carolina.

"It's still early, but things are looking awful, awful good," Biden told cheering supporters in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.

"We were told when we got to Super Tuesday it would be over, but maybe it was actually the other guy," Biden added. "Tell that to the folks in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas Minnesota, and maybe even Massachusetts, it's too close to call."

Sanders also took to the microphone after the results were declared in South Carolina. “Tonight we did not win in South Carolina, and this will not be our only defeat,” he said to supporters in Virginia Beach. “There are a lot of states in this country, and nobody wins them all.”

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, unexpectedly dropped out of the presidential race Sunday evening after failing to finish in the top two in either the Nevada or South Carolina primary.

While the endorsement was not immediate, Buttigieg announced his backing of Biden for president Monday night.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar also chose Monday to suspend her campaign in the build up to Super Tuesday. The senator announced the news that afternoon and endorsed Biden that same evening.

The two endorsements are expected to give Biden a meaningful bump in Tuesday’s voting. Buttigieg was popular enough to finish with what many would call a victory in Iowa and a second-place finish in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Klobuchar was able to resonate with voters across the nation with her messaging, despite never being able to break into the top three of a voting contest.

Outside of Sanders, Biden, Warren and Bloomberg there are actually two other candidates who will still be on the Democratic primary ballot for Super Tuesday. The seldom mentioned congress member from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard, and the widely unknown Mark Stewart, who will be on the ballot in a handful of states on Tuesday.

Super Tuesday has been a major point of emphasis for the remaining Democratic presidential candidates, with Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia all voting on the day.

A staggering 1,357 pledged delegates will be awarded on Super Tuesday, which is 34 percent of all delegates in the 2020 primary season.

Going into Tuesday, Sanders leads in the delegate count with 56, followed by Biden with 48 and Warren with eight.